With a reputation steeped in lore and a history spotted with imperfections, Admiralty Island bruins find refuge, harmony

Photo by Amy Condra, A brown bear sow and two cubs find repose on the banks of Pack Creek on Admiralty Island in July. “We manage Pack Creek so that our human presence is as benign as possible,” said Harry Tullis, U.S. Forest Service Lead Wilderness Ranger for Pack Creek. “We’re just a background to their normal activities.”

by Amy Condra

Raindrops drum on the Cessna’s aluminum floats, adding an urgent rhythm to our mission as one by one we ease ourselves out of the plane and into the shallows.

Clad in waterproof jackets and rubber boots we splash to shore, but reaching land doesn’t improve anything as far as the rain goes; there is no shelter as we stand on a gravel bar beneath a lowering sky.

Nobody is complaining, because our attention has been caught by something more compelling than the weather: Someone has spotted a bear.

“Oh my God!” exclaims a young woman in our group, as the rest of us squint and strain to make sense of a blurry shape far ahead of us.